Antarctica
by Melissa Snyder
Summary: no characters from legend. sorry. / In Legend, you learned of the Republic and its struggle for freedom. Antarctica has it's own problems. A ranking system like a game; it determines your future. But it's not a game, and Candace Parry knows it, until she is taken and deluded into think it's a game and that she's safe. But it isn't. No one is safe in Antarctica.
1. Chapter 1

**Note: Bolded question taken from 1999 AP Chemistry Exam.**

I ran along the edge to get to class, my chip beeping at me to _hurry up_, or I'd lose 10 points. My rank on the leaderboard this week was 108 in my age group, with a total of a meager 500 points this past week; losing 10 points is not going to help my case _at all_, especially with the final awards looming over our heads for next week.

Thankfully, I made it to class with a minute to spare, and looked for my usual seat—near the back door—only to find that it had been taken for today, and the only desirable open seat was behind Jacob, the tallest guy in class. How was I going to learn when I couldn't see the board? Final examinations were next week, for crying out loud!

"Hey, I sit there, Candace," someone sneered at me. Richard Snyder, someone kill me now? I'm looking at you, Alyssa, who snatched someone's seat in the front of the room.

"Sorry, but I don't think we have assigned seats in this class," I shot back.

"Well," he purposely drew the word out, "I think that we should."

He then proceeded to kick me out of my seat, leaving me sprawled out on the floor, and tossed my notebook to me.

At that point, I'm pretty sure that _everyone_ in our class was watching.

"Tch," he said in disgust, "you made me lose fifty points. Do you have any idea how difficult Calculus is?"

Actually, it's not. But I didn't dare to say that out loud. Instead, I simply got up and dusted myself off before taking the last open seat, the one next to the window, which is supposedly haunted by some evil spirit, which is why no one ever really wanted to sit there, although we had a full classroom, so _someone _had to sit there. Normally, the last one in had to, unless they resorted to violence to not sit in this seat, which is normally just slightly overboard. Richard was probably the most notorious for this, and as a result had to drop to last place in the rankings—110th place—with no one below him. Second to last—109th place—was taken by Maria Snyder, his sister who was one year under us. Bother that I'm in 108th place, really. It's not that I _can't_ be higher, it's that I don't _want_ to be higher.

But everyone wants to be higher, right? Wrong. Even though a higher position grants you things like the best jobs and the highest cash prize at the end of the year, staying near the bottom has the perk of anonymity, especially if you don't do anything to deduct points, but instead not do anything to add points. And generally, that's what I do. So, I don't take anymore extra tests, and I only accumulate points by everyday methods, such as cooking or cleaning my living space.

"So," our teacher, Mr. Browner, boomed, "what do you have to combine sodium with to create table salt?"

Chlorine. The answer is chlorine. He thinks the question will stump everyone.

It doesn't. Alyssa quickly raises her hand, and answers with chlorine. She gets five points. Hooray. She'll likely win first place this year.

Obviously, my brainy friend knows _everything_. And so do I. I just choose not to answer.

"Well, that was a little easy, don't you think?" he asked.

Everyone, well almost everyone, nods in affirmative.

My guess that around half of those people who nodded were lying.

"I'll write the next question on the board, since it's harder, but we should have covered it."

He then turned around and wrote the following question on the board:

**Which of the following pairs of liquids forms the solution that is the most ideal (most closely follows Rauolt's Law?**

**A. C8H18 and H2O**

**B. CH3CH2CH2OH and C8H18**

**C. C6H14 and C8H18**

**D. H2SO4 and H2O**

Slightly harder? A _lot_ harder. The answer is C, because Hexane and Octane mix easily, and will have the most "ideal" behavior. Out of the group, anyway. Also because even _now_ they haven't discovered substances which mix to have _completely_ ideal behaviors. You'd think they have, but no, they haven't. Besides, what's the point of designing an ideal substance, anyway?

No one raised their hand for quite a while, and I pretended to be working out the answer in my notebook.

Finally, Alyssa raised her hand.

"Yes, Alyssa?" he asked.

"Um... is it A?" she seemed uncertain. She had a right to, because she was wrong.

"Wrong. Can anyone explain why?"

Because octane is non-polar and water hates non-polar molecules.

"I'm just going to call on you, Candace," he said.

"I don't know," I answered immediately.

"Answer or I'll deduct all your points," he threatened.

_Damn, _even though it wouldn't be that bad. I swear I heard Richard snicker in the background.

"Eh, um... octane is non-polar, right? And non-polar molecules don't mix with polar molecules."

Did I put on a good enough show? I was easily known as the student who never scored higher that 75 questions right on the exams. I knew it, and I did it on purpose.

The smart ones were always taken and corrupted. I knew that much, at least. Because if you were fighting a war, you didn't have to worry about the idiots. They were smart, really, using the point system to pick out the brightest kids. Shower them with prizes and a high position where they are brainwashed. There, no rebellion.

Too easy for the government, obviously. Very subtle control, but it existed.

I hoped that he bought it.

"Right, Miss Parry, do you know the right answer?"

Just get this over with, I thought. I answered, "C."

"Alright, ten points to you," the notification blinked in the center of my display.

"And, on to the next question," he continued, with easier questions, and as I guessed, Alyssa got them all correct.

Every. Single. One. No one else even dared to question her authority in answering Chemistry questions. I briefly wondered if she would be mad at me for getting that one question right when she had it wrong.

After class, she came up to my desk.

"Ugh," she started, "I totally forgot that octane wasn't a polar molecule."

"Doesn't matter," I replied, and gathered my things so that we could head to our next class, which was another review session where Alyssa, again, probably knew _everything_.

"Why doesn't it matter?" Alyssa asked, "Exams are next week! And after that, the awards ceremony! You could bump up your rank if you came to the test-taking session with me this afternoon."

"No thanks, I don't like those," I answered.

"Why would you not want to get your rank up?" she asked. She isn't normally like this. Have they gotten to her with their promises yet?

"Rank doesn't matter to me." Lie. It does matter. It matters that I get a low score.

And the bombarding continued, Alyssa clearly not understanding why I don't want to score higher.

||After School||

I lied. Maria was catching up quickly, so I went to a test-taking station to score a few more points. I didn't care if I was taking a test, as long as I was above both Maria and Richard. Those are the only two I'll ever allow myself to become competitive with.

I looked at the screen, answering only the questions with the lowest point rewards, so I came off as average, and not smart.

At the end, I scored fifty more points, bringing my total up to 560 points. I was still in 108th place—the person in 107th had 875 points—but at least I stayed ahead of the Snyder siblings. I took the transport home instead of walking, but it took less time. Plus, I made enough money with my "job" that my parents never knew about.

Besides, I was paid twofold—money and sensitive information—and I almost never slipped up.

Almost. I needed data on one thing, but I needed to get it in the dead of night, when my parents were well asleep.

When I got home, I immediately started cleaning, with notifications saying that I wracked up an additional ten points before dinner.

My parents were never home for dinner, so I had to run down to the cafeteria to pick up a few ingredients, using money that of course, my parents didn't know existed.

I ate dinner and pretended to sleep when both of my parents reached our apartment and passed out on their beds after drinking, as usual.

Looks like I would have to clean up more tomorrow. My parents were geniuses, but nothing ever kept them from drinking.

When I heard the snores, I waited just a few minutes for it to pass, then pulled out my computer, temporarily disabled the chip implanted in my chin to keep track of what I do, and dove into the darknet.

**A/N: Feedback is appreciated! (don't be scared to comment. I mean it)**


	2. Chapter 2

The darknet isn't as "dark" as the name might imply, nor was it as fancy as the well known "Internet". While the internet is appealing visually, the darknet has many advantages, most notably hiding your IP address from anyone, along with the advantage of only being shared amongst trusted peers. While visiting pages on the internet added points to your rank on the game system, the darknet was better for collecting data, especially data that you don't want shared with anyone.

Quickly, I accessed the government servers via the darknet, numbers running through my head as I translated the binary values to text which I was typing into a virtual keyboard.

Most people don't hire hackers because they needed sensitive information and not let anyone know they had it—that was easy enough—but because most people couldn't type or translate binary to text fast enough. Translating without a computer program was easy enough, but doing it fast was the problem. And because of that, hackers are ofter hired in political quarrels to illegally obtain information.

I read through what I had just typed, once the stream of numbers stopped, and it seemed to make sense. Branden Levy already scouting out the brightest of the year, with the list of names already. Alyssa was on top, as I expected.

It wasn't safe to stay in the darknet for a long period of time, so I sent the file on its way, the contents permanently filed away in my memory.

||The Next Morning||

_Shit!_ Am I going to be late again? I should quit hacking someday and get some quality sleep before I sleep through my alarm _again._ Thankfully, I didn't have any of those stacked up on me for the next few days so that I could get some extra sleep. Honestly, taking five jobs in a row, night-to-night is pretty rare for me.

I probably ran by at least fifteen people on my rush to school, but I only pushed one kid over.

That happened to be a surprise, since I never normally ran anyone over.

"Sorry!" I apologized hurriedly, trying to move on, but he stopped me.

Chauncey Alvarez. This was almost worse than having Richard Snyder kick me out of a desk.

"Hey, uh, I'm new here," he said.

I know you are.

"So, uh, can you show me to class?"

"Sure," I replied, "who do you have first?"

"Browner, for chemistry?"

"Our class is full."

"I think they dropped a kid named Prichard Snyder?"

"Richard," I corrected instinctively.

"Oh, yeah. Him."

I started walking, and he followed, not asking questions.

I didn't expect him to, after all. After using "our" in reference to his first class, only an idiot would not know I was going to class.

"Miss Parry, you're late!" Browner seemed to hate me, and I still couldn't get over how he forced me to answer yesterday.

Both ways, it was unfair.

"Brought a new student," I answered.

"Hi, I'm Chauncey Alvarez?" he walked up in front of me, introducing himself.

Today, my usual seat was not occupied, so I took it, and the chance to hide the majority of my face behind Cassandra's hair.

In contrast to yesterday's spot, I could actually _see_ the board.

I just had a chance to hide half of my face so that Browner hopefully forgot about my existence.

The darn guy never did, and it was probably because of the holograms documenting where every student was sitting on his desk.

At least I could forgo the eye contact. It's a pain, really.

Chauncey sat himself down in the desk at the other side of the room, the one next to the window in the back of that row.

I don't understand anyone's affinity with the paranormal, although it's usually best not to sit there to avoid being avoided by everyone except for your closest friend.

"Okay, we're starting with easy questions today," Mr. Browner said, with less volume than yesterday, but more conviction than usual.

"What type of energy is required to form the transition state in a chemical equation?" he asked.

Obviously, Alyssa's hand went straight up, and so did Chauncey's to everyone's surprise but mine.

Mr. Browner, obviously excited for one more student to start answering questions, purposely skipped calling on Alyssa and went straight for Chauncey.

"Activation energy, sir," he answered.

Damn those Arcadia students. Their education system was faster and more advanced than ours here at Taomiene, and they knew it.

Class continued, and it was the same for me as it was every day, except that Chauncey answered instead of Alyssa.

Hearing his voice just made me—_snap out of it!_

Class was over, finally, and I could stop listening to his freaking—_shut up, self._

"Hey," I greeted Alyssa at her usual seat in the front of the classroom, right next to the window. How fitting that we always chose seats directly diagonal to each other.

"I. Am..." Alyssa said, seething with anger.

"Um... mad?" I tried for her, even though wrathful or infuriated seemed more fitting for her current situation.

"Understatement!" she yelled.

I'd better get away.

"Candace, get back here!" she screamed, and I ran out, rather artful words spouting out of my mouth as I left.

"Oh my freaking gosh!" she was seething with anger again while we waited in the lunch line for our lunches.

"Alyssa..."

"Candace! Don't tell me you didn't enjoy watching me get insulted by that new jerk."

"I didn't really."

"Liar."

"I'm not lying."

"Well, I care. You should care, too."

"As long as it's not me with the answer, I don't care who it is."

"I've already got President Levy of our Taomiene Pod's eyes on me!"

That's not a good thing, I wanted to say.

Instead, I replied with, "Good luck in whatever position he offers you."

At that moment, we reached the front of the line and I reached out for one of the trays plopped in front of me. I paid with my money, and Alyssa usually paid with her points.

Only the top fifty could pay with their points.

I made more money with my hacking job, anyway. If you converted the amount of money I had into points, it'd be higher than even Alyssa's total, if she never spent any of her earned points.

Smart government, trying to set everything up so that it seemed like a game.

That's even what they told guests in Antarctica, that it was a game.

However, _game_ is not synonymous to _real life_. I think that's the only fact that most of the ignorant citizens misunderstood about living here. It's not a game. It shouldn't be a game, either. You can _die_ in a game. You can die in real life.

The difference is smaller than anyone could ever imagine.

I sat in my usual seat, Alyssa more paranoid than usual that she wasn't going to end up on top when she didn't answer every question on the test.

"I think I'll have to go in for another testing session today," she said.

"Why not just take one at the testing stations?" I asked.

"I can't do that, I already finished all of those," she said.

"If it makes you feel any better, he's from Arcadia," I said, in an attempt to calm her down.

"Arcadia?" she asked quite loudly, "If it weren't for my parent's shit jobs, I could test into one of their schools!"

I tried not to mention that I was kicked out of Arcadia a few years back for "academic incompetence". I started my hacking job in Arcadia, and after I found out what happened to the highest scoring students, I slowly let my point total drop until I was shipped to Taomiene. Arcadia was the only pod that shipped people to others for falling low on the scoreboards, and I couldn't blame them; wanting to keep the top and all.

Alyssa wouldn't be able to keep up with the competitive nature of the system there. The system mattered around ten times more in the Arcadia pod. It mattered enough here, but there were usually plenty of people giving out jobs to people with a low score total.

In Arcadia, only the top 100 of each age group, usually out of 200, get jobs. Normally, the people in the bottom 60 or so move to another pod, and the remaining 40 can barely scratch by with their desire to remain in Arcadia.

For Alyssa, her point total would lie somewhere in the 4000s, based on the fact that she incorrectly answered that question yesterday, which is slightly higher than her current total here, but that would land her somewhere in 150th place, even when competition was tight, meaning that they would ship her out anyway.

"Yeah, Alyssa, you wouldn't really be able to stay there for very long."

"What?"

"You have no idea. I've seen the top scores for our age group there and the guy in first place has over a million."

"Well, I could still score in the top fifty, right? He's probably an outlier."

"Sixtieth place has a total in the 500,000s."

I didn't mention that Chauncey had been sixtieth place before his parents undoubtedly got kicked out. I knew that they hung out near the bottom every time, and the government there probably got tired of them being there, even when their son hadn't placed high, by any means.

When he transferred, they probably reset his score total somewhere in the 3000s, so he wouldn't stand out as much.

Alyssa was fuming with the idea that she wouldn't be able to scrape by in Arcadia—it wasn't my problem—even though I might have failed to mention that there was more cheating in the form of hackers artificially increasing their point totals so she'd end up way closer to the bottom, with no hacking skills on her side.

||After School||

First thing on my agenda today showed up when I reached home and cleaned up after my parent's incessant drinking problems.

A message showed up in my vision, another hacking job, which was weird because I mostly told people to send them to my constructed holographical screen positioned in my room.

From: Branden Levy. Subject: Job

Accept?

I hit accept on the ping, and read it quickly. Now? I needed to get the information now?

What's more, he needed information from a political enemy.

The same one I did the job for last night.

I opened the composer and sent a decline message, even though I usually wasn't one to give up on challenges.

It was who it was _for_. I, myself opposed Branden's political position, and most of his decisions.

He replied immediately.

Did he have this much free time?

Get over to the Capitol building, _now_.

Would he send security after me if I didn't?

I didn't want trouble, so I complied, getting ready, until security came knocking on my door anyways.


	3. Chapter 3

I'm in some deep shit.

_That fast? _I'm guessing he had predicted my annoyance with him—which isn't difficult at all—and had security pretty much right outside my door, ready to kidnap me even if I had replied in the affirmative.

Although the fact that he reached me in the first place is extremely questionable. I have multiple darknet portal addresses, and it should be impossible to locate that it was _me_, Candace Parry, resident of the Taomiene Pod. My IP scrambler _should_ have taken care of that.

Obviously, your key word is should. Did he have any idea how much I was actually opposing his rule?

A lot. I was one of the most outspoken citizens, but that was under my internet pseudonym.

So, how did he find out? Is it my chip having moments of disconnectivity?

"Open up!" a strong, full voice boomed from outside.

Shit, shit, shit!

Okay, calm. Seriously. Although, it's rather questionable if you can be calm if security is knocking on your door, probably waiting to arrest you.

"In three seconds, I'll have clearance to knock down the door and not be charged property damages, although you're making me very, _very_ impatient."

I sighed and ran for the door. I flung it open—outwards, obviously—and it hit him square in the face.

He'd assume that was on purpose.

It didn't even do any damage. Sometimes I wonder why some people have to blame people for screwing them over if it didn't cause any serious damage. If it's a minor inconvenience, can't it be overlooked?

"You have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into," he said softly.

Soft threats are more dangerous than immediate vengeance.

"Actually," I endeavored to reply, "I do."

"Just come," he said brusquely, changing his mood instantly, "Branden said you were to be unharmed."

He then proceeded to throw me—yes, it hurt, thanks for asking—into a car which then rushed off to the other side of the Taomiene Pod.

Branden, well, he obviously wants my hacking skills. I wouldn't be of much use with crushed fingers, although the argument could be made that your "body" in the "Internet"—which really should be called a datanet instead—or the darknet aren't affected directly by your corporeal form in the real world, although the true argument could be made that the line blurring the datanet and the real world was quickly diminishing, especially with the dawn of the Virtual Reality age, along with the fact that life in Antarctica was practically a game in itself.

Well, a game that's as evil as it gets.

After all, if it's fun and if it keeps people motivated, then the people won't notice of the recent collapse of the Galdem Pod, especially that it was deliberately destroyed to see if citizens of other pods would notice.

Obviously, they didn't. Along with the fact that only the clever ones would ever be able to apply the knowledge that they know, convert it into a logical sequence and figure out that the government is corrupted. Those are the ones who are taken for the high paying jobs. If people are satisfied, why would they concern themselves with the blatant fact that they are lab rats by _their own government?_ All the smart ones are satisfied with their happy lives, the rest of the population is too stupid to care, so how would they know? How did I know?

Well, I knew that the Galdem incident was orchestrated by the government from a hacking job. I knew that Galdem had collapsed from a fire a few weeks before I had the hacking job from someone in Africa. First, the fact that it was a _fire_ stuck oddly. If the Galdem Pod had collapsed due to a system overheat, then the system overheating would normally trigger a system warning for all citizens to evacuate to the nearest pod. But that didn't happen, or else there would have been survivors.

If there are no survivors, it probably means that it was orchestrated by someone, or something. But up until that hacking job, I thought that maybe Africa—which most of the blame was pinned on—or the Colonies—who, might I mention, was at war with the Republic—so that may have been unlikely.

But, no. Our own government. I know that the Republic was notorious for the most Communist government, with their "elected" leader, but never would I have though Antarctica would be destroying its own citizens in an experiment to control how strong their mind control is.

And it's an effective mind control system, don't get me wrong, but there's always that one outlier.

That's me. I've been in touch with many countries across the world, mostly North Africa, Western Europe, and the Middle East. We've been planning to overthrow the Antarctican Council, which was basically the government.

"We're here," the security guy said, shaking me out of my thoughts, which was useful because I sensed mind-reading waves close by.

Wouldn't want to think anything bad of our _dear_ government, after all.

The guy—I still didn't know his name—shoved me into a massive office on the left side of the hallway on the right, where the mind-reading waves were blocked by the thickness of the walls.

It's Branden's office. As if it wasn't hard enough to tell from the position on the map _and_ the size of the room.

"Sit down," he said, barely looking up from his paperwork.

I silently thanked the paperwork for keeping him busy for so long. Thanked it for letting me get away with my silent resistance for so long.

Well, as silent as hacking could get, pretty much.

Which was, by the way, pretty silent.

"Sit!" he yelled, digging me out of my thoughts, while I just remembered that I had yet to sit.

Drifting off was normally my first instinct—see? There I go doing it again—when I'm bored, nervous, or really, _anything_.

It was a safe place for me, my own thoughts, and I craved the feeling of being alone too much.

Far too much.

I sat. The chair was designed for comfort, yet it was not comfortable in the least.

"You're not supposed to decline, right?" he asked.

"I was under the impression that free will existed?"

Wrong answer. At least I thought it was; I can't say he didn't think the same.

"You will tell me _everything_, and I mean _everything_ that was extracted last night."

I winced.

I couldn't remember things under pressure. Besides, all the data is stored in my data terminal at home, quantum-encrypted.

I knew that there would never be a way that I would be able to remember all of that data, especially in my underdeveloped mind.

"Um…" I replied.

"Just tell me."

"I don't remember," I said, even though I remembered most of it.

I just don't remember the entire binary sequence.

"Lies," he said, "with that brain of yours, you'd remember anything from the past three weeks."

"Well..." I tried.

"Don't waste my time," he said, pulling the front of my shirt toward him.

I, myself just stood uncomfortably with my body mostly obstructed from him by the desk that was between us.

"Tell me!"

"Um… zero one zero one zero one zero zero—"

"I'm just going to ask you to stop right there," he said, "If you were to rattle off the entire binary sequence, we'd be here for days."

"What did you think the point was?" I asked, "Personally, I just think that you don't understand binary."

"Yes, I can," he retaliated.

Did I just pick a hole in his defensive system? Score!

"Well, what's a lowercase h?" I asked.

"Zero one zero zero one zero zero zero, did you think I was an idiot? I know my binary letters?"

"Really?" I asked, "Would you mind explaining why you rattled off the sequence for a capital h when I asked for a lowercase one?"

"Lowercase and capitals don't matter," he said stubbornly.

"Well, if you let me down, I'll stop pressing the subject."

I was now inches off the ground, and him holding me up by the collar of my shirt for such an extended period of time was beginning to become—just a little—painful.

He set me down, and I smoothed a few wrinkles over.

"Now, continue telling me what else was extracted last night."

What was the fuss? I extracted the list every year, but this is the first time that he's interrogated me about it.

Was it the paperwork? Paperwork was the savior for a lot of us, truthfully.

"Zero one zero zero one zero zero zero zero one zero zero zero one zero one zero zero one zero zero zero zero zer—"

"Can you give it to me in _text_ form, please?" he interrupted again.

"No, because then you'd be able to understand it."

There I go with my mouth, _again_. Was I really that much of an idiot?

"I'm smarter than you!" he almost screamed, childishly, might I add.

"The dumbest person in the room is the first one to tell you he's smart," I said, almost without thinking.

My mouth. Did it happen to be operating without me today?

Personally, I think it took a life of its own while I was sleep deprived, which considering the amount of sleep deprivation I've had recently, didn't sound too bad to my sleep deprived head.

Obviously, my practical side dismissed the possibility immediately.

"Fine," he conceded. "Frank!"

"Your guard's name is Frank?" I asked.

"Who's Frank?" someone came in, asking.

"You!" Branden yelled.

"Yes, sir!"

"Take the girl to the chamber."

Oh, _shit_. I'll be staying here for… a while. That's it. A while.

Probably a few years, from the looks of it.

"My name," the guard—not the same one as earlier—said indignantly, "is _not_ Frank."

"Whatever, Walter."

"My name isn't Walter, either!"

Branden had immersed himself in more paperwork at this point so Frank… er… Walter… whatever his name is…dragged me out of his office.

"Don't tell him," he said to me, "but my name's actually Walter. Although for our purposes, I prefer Joseph."

"You could have just told me to call you Joseph, you know."

He shrugged, and I was bounced upwards slightly by the motion, since I was dangling off of him while he just hauled me along.

"Here we are," he said leading me into a room and tossing me onto a bed. "The bathroom is over there," he pointed to the left, "and you should be ready for Branden to see you in the morning."

"Okay," I said, rubbing my head from getting thrown with force onto a bed.

Landing on a bed doesn't hurt. Landing on a bed after being thrown with force does hurt.

I dragged myself up, flipped myself into a more comfortable position, and then proceeded to bury my head into a pillow.

Don't try to escape.

Dammit! So now I don't even have to hit accept to read a message?

It's really to my disadvantage that I can't dig the stupid chip out of my chin and reprogram it.

Or that I can't reprogram it at all.

I slammed my head down in frustration, and sent a quick ping to my parents that was to deliver when they reached home… I wouldn't be there to clean after their drinking for a while.

ping sent

At least I could still do that.

Who else could I ping? Alyssa was out of the question—she'd never believe that I was in a bad situation—and Chauncey…

Could I trust him?

Probably not. And even if I could, there was no way I'd be able to send an outgoing ping without being monitored.

I sighed in defeat and crawled under the blankets after controlling the curtains shut; even though it was long before nighttime.

Time passes quickly when you're sleeping, after all.


	4. Chapter 4

"Get up, you!" someone called at the door.

Who was it? Groggily, I opened my eyes only to be blinded by a flash of light directly in my face.

Damn you, Branden. You could have knocked loudly enough, and I would have gotten up, except that you felt the need to use the external light switch in a perfectly sunlit room.

Please, ask yourself, Branden, did you _really_ need to do that?

"Get out now!" he yelled.

Maybe I should make him wait.

"Would you _please_ come out?"

What was he planning?

I opened the door. "Was all that screaming necessary?"

"No," he answered, "but you needed to wake up."

I had no refute, so he proceeded to drag me down the hallway—either to his office, outside, or the reformatory room.

The reformatory room.

Everyone's worst nightmare.

I sincerely hoped that wasn't where I was going.

He threw me onto a chair with barely any padding, and I slumped down, knowing exactly where this was going.

"Tell me," he said.

"I tried," I replied. "It's not a fault of mine if you didn't understand i—"

I screamed, as the electrical output in the disguised electric chair turned on and…

Dark.

That's all I know.

That's all I need to know.

||The Next Day||

Groggily, I sat up on my bed to the bleeping noise, but not only that, the chip had to insert visual signals, practically blinding me before I blinked five times in succession to disable it. Belatedly, I realized that it was morning. On Monday, the first day of our exams. In shock, I remembered that I hadn't studied at all. What was I thinking? The last thing I remembered was falling asleep…in a white room?

Where?

Why don't I remember?

School starts in ten minutes. The words flashed before my eyes, and the urgency of school overtook the immediate situation of not knowing what had conspired the night before. Was I studying?

I was probably studying. It would explain a lot of things.

The minor annoyance was that I didn't remember what I had studied the night before.

School in eight minutes.

I curse the day that two minute constant reminders were invented. I hurriedly threw clothes on, raced down the stairs to step over broken glass from my parent's latest bout of drinking, grabbed my backpack, and ran, arriving at school with two minutes to spare. I took my usual seat in the back, but instead of Cassandra's mass of hair to hide behind during chemistry class, the head directly in front of my face was the head of none other than Chauncey Alvarez.

When had he transferred to Taomiene from Arcadia?

"Um…Chauncey?" I asked tentatively.

"Hey, Candace," he said, turning around.

"When did you transfer from Arcadia?" I asked.

"Friday," he said. "I thought you were here."

Friday? What was it that I didn't remember?

"Oh, sorry," I said, intending to end our conversation, "must have slipped my mind."

He didn't look satisfied with that, but turned around anyway, sending a ping to my chip.

Courtyard, after afternoon exams.

I was about to make the classic "I'm busy" comment, but our chips were disabled as the first question was displayed on the terminals sitting on our desks for exam day.

I read it and immediately began working.

Exams in our school take around three hours per exam. After finishing my Chemistry exam, lunch with Amanda was pretty normal—as expected—although she did keep giving me weird looks. Was there something on my face the entire lunch hour? History exams weren't difficult either—it looks like I _did_ study, after all.

Or maybe I didn't and I just remembered everything. But if I did, what explained my low ranking and previously low test scores?

"Candace!" I heard a voice behind me.

"You're late," I said, my voice clipped.

"I was expecting that," he muttered to himself.

Even though I heard it, I asked, "What was that?"

"Nothing," he replied.

As expected, of course.

"Look," he said, "I don't have time for games. I know you heard me when I said it the first time."

I gulped. How did he know?

"Where were you Friday afternoon?"

"Home," I bluffed, hoping that he hadn't called home to ask if I was there.

"I called your parents, and they said you weren't there," he replied, unrelenting.

"Think about it," I continued bluffing, "Should you _really_ trust drunk people?"

"They weren't drunk," he said.

"They're always drunk," I said it like it meant nothing, although _I_ was the one to clean up the mess.

"Fine," he conceded. "Oh, and good luck getting a high job, you're third to last in the rankings, yearly cycle."

"What?" how was I third to last, of all people? Third to last! I was _far_ smarter than that, wasn't I? Or am I just flattering myself?

"But you know," he continued, "if you fly by the exams, you should land in the top twenty, on the yearly cycle, at least."

"Thanks," I said, "as if I wasn't going to do that already."

He raised an eyebrow. "You sure a high position is what you want?"

"Why are you even asking? Of course I want a high position! Being satisfied for life, doing things for the greater good…"

"The greater good? Wow, the brainwashing is worse here than I initially thought."

**A/N: Short, and it took me forever. who's actually reading, anyway?**


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